Falling Up

He knows that she is fragile
just as surely as he knows that the moon rises at night.
It's what draws him near. Perhaps
what keeps him from letting go.
Running away from what she didn't need.
But held onto anyway.
It was all she had.
Memories broken into pieces like seashells
sprawled onto the sheets of the bed she made.
They say you have to lay in it
So she thinks.
And she does, late at night.
When the moon and sky kiss
In the way she remembered he would kiss her.
Burn her. Hot to the touch
But cold as he drowned her.
These were the memories she held close
Among other treasurers, she'd hoarded them.
Keeping old copper pennies and torn photographs
hoping that one day they would be valuable.
She hopes someday she will be too.
He peeled off her protective layers,one by one.
Grimacing at the effort it took to unravel them.
Crude and jagged letters
spelling out an unprecedented truth.
Because all in all, they are. End over end.
And they can't be
anything else
when they
truly fall.